


The sound (of blood against tile) of my thudding heart

by charons_boat



Series: The Expansion Packs: Aesthetic Prompts Edition [2]
Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Demon!Changbin, Human!Hyunjin, M/M, Mentions of Blood, Mentions of Death, Mentions of Murder, Religious References, hyunjin and changbin are in an insane asylum, hyunjin and jeongin are brothers, insane asylum, possessed?jeongin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-17
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-07 22:02:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26504848
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/charons_boat/pseuds/charons_boat
Summary: What are you supposed to do when no one believes that your father (the one you killed) was possessed?
Relationships: Hwang Hyunjin & Yang Jeongin | I.N, Hwang Hyunjin/Seo Changbin
Series: The Expansion Packs: Aesthetic Prompts Edition [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1733224
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lemon_jelly](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lemon_jelly/gifts).



> :o i hope u enjoy! its kinda short and also late but,,

No one knew where Changbin had come from, or how long he'd been there. His age was a mystery, and his role was cloaked in shadow. For as long as anyone could remember, Changbin had been there. Throughout the years, through the changes of staff and asylum head, the demon had been the one constant.

Of course, no one could see that he was a demon (unless he made himself visible as one, of course). To everyone else, Changbin looks like any other patient: boring, medicated, quiet, _human_. No one can see the wicked sharp horns crowning his head, nor the torn-up, bat-like wings folded against his back. To most everyone else, really, he kinda just looks like a pissed-off dwarf.

Enter Hyunjin Yang: since he was a boy, he’d been telling anyone who’d listen that he could see the demons and the ghosts. No one believed him, and on the night he killed his father because he claimed there was a demon possessing him… well, Hyunjin was right, but no one believed him, even his younger brother, Jeongin. Of course, for the first couple of months after Hyunjin was admitted, Jeongin visited his brother. They talked about school and mutual friends, and Hyunjin avoided the one topic he really wanted to bring up: demons.

Hyunjin was absolutely sure that he’d caught a glimpse of a demon once. He wanted to tell someone, but a borderline nightmare kept his mouth firmly shut. If there was one thing that Yang Hyunjin was sure of, it was that he was never going to be the cause of his brother’s death, nor would he allow them to drift apart entirely.


	2. Chapter 2

Changbin, the demon that no one else sees--or maybe they do see him and just don’t realize what he is, for I’m sure that if they knew, they’d be running from him--seems to stare a lot. Not at anyone else, not at only a couple specific people, but at me. I don’t know why. I don’t know if it was somehow Changbin that left the message in blood on my wall (that was a fiasco about three months in, which started while I was asleep and ended with my dead roommate being pulled from the room as an orderly scrubbed the message off the wall. I was awake enough to catch the message: _It was more fun in Hell_.) or if it’s someone else screaming at me from the depths of my dreams to wake up, but I am certain that Changbin is dangerous. I’m certain he’s the best chance I have at escaping the asylum and getting to see Jeongin again.

I don’t know why Jeongin stopped coming, but it was around the same time that I first walked up to Changbin, smiling as widely and kindly as I could, and said hi. Talking to other patients confirmed that Changbin had only ever stood there in his straitjacket and scowled at everyone, so his responding to me was a shock. Even more so was the fact that I actually enjoyed talking to Changbin. I really couldn’t have told anyone what we talked about, because it amounted to so little in the grand scheme of things, but it made me feel normal and peaceful. When I talk to Changbin, it’s easy to forget that I haven’t seen Jeongin in… in far too long.

* * *

  
When Jeongin does visit again, he brings news that their mother and aunt have died. He’s stony-faced and serious, and there’s absolutely no trace of the wide-grinned boy that I grew up with. His braces are gone, and it makes him look far too grown-up; maybe it’s just the new slimness of his cheeks though, or the lack of light in his eyes.

I try to joke, to make him laugh again. “It must’ve been of grief that aunt’s favorite nephew wasn’t around when she came to visit!”

“Be serious, Hyunjin. You know Aunt hated you just as well as I do. She was glad you’d been put here, actually. They died in a car crash,” he says. He sounds too cold and stale. The demon in our father had sounded like this. Changbin doesn’t. I grin and scrunch up my eyes in a way that’s almost painful, trying to hide the tears as I laugh. My brother shouldn’t sound so empty.

“When you say it like that, it almost sounds like you’ve been possessed like Dad was,” I say, trying to make another joke. I was joking, and Jeongin’s eyes finally light up; it’s with rage, though. Jeongin stands up, towering over me with blazing eyes, and I’m shocked into wide-eyed silence as he shouts at me.

“Stop with the demon bullshit! You’re not a kid anymore, and you aren’t supposed to buy into that crap anymore! You killed Dad because you’re messed up in the head, not because he was possessed! I-- when we were growing up, you were so strong and confident! What happened to that?!” Jeongin has his hands in his hair and looks about ready to tear it out. He gestures wildly as he talks, something Jeongin has never really done before. Jeongin has never raised his voice as far as I’m aware, and even when telling elaborate jokes or stories, he’s never been a hand-talker. Something must be _seriously_ wrong with my brother.

Jeongin glares down at me as tears spring into my eyes. By the time my lip begins to wobble, his eyes have already dimmed again. When the first tear falls, I spring to my feet and run away from him, shouldering past Changbin and the asylum staff alike. I only know it’s Changbin I pass because I catch a glimpse of his horns. (Jeongin does too. As his brother passes the shorter man, Jeongin sees a flash of twisted horn upon the demon’s head, and his eyes widen. Yang Jeongin is suddenly very afraid as the short man turns his dead-eyed gaze to the boy who’d just yelled at Hyunjin. Jeongin tries to call out to Hyunjin, recalling the tears he’d seen in his brother’s eyes, but it was far too late because Hyunjin was already curled up in his bed once more, crying as quietly as he could so that he wouldn’t wake up the other patient in the room.)

* * *

  
Changbin is terrifying at times, especially now, with vermillion-soaked hands dripping blood onto the dirty tile. The asylum hasn’t been kind to either of us: I’ve lost my brother to what I think might be the same demon that took my father, and Changbin… he’s lost millennia. What’s scary isn’t really the fact that Changbin had just killed dozens of people so we could escape, it’s the emptiness of his eyes. They hold nothing, are absolutely blank and still and emotionless. He looks towards me, and they slowly grow brighter. I recall what Changbin had said a few days ago, the promise I’d made to him by betraying God for him.

"I know why you befriended me, Hyunjin,” he’d told me. “You were brought here wrongfully, and you wanted out. You only talked to me that first day, with that big, beautiful grin, because you were going to betray me. I should know, Hyunjin. I'm the demon of betrayal, born when Cain killed his brother. I've seen the beginning of the world, and I'll see it end, too. You could see it with me. Betray someone greater than me, and you'll have earned your place by my side." I could hardly believe that Changbin was really begging me to escape with him and stay with him. Despite myself and my surprise, my lips had curled up into a smile, and I’d started down the most dangerous path I would ever tread, one that started with a single, feather-light kiss.

Would it be so bad to be stuck with the demon of betrayal my whole life? It’s something I’d wondered often in the past few days. I couldn’t recall, anymore, what I’d been intending to do to escape and then get rid of Changbin. I remember deciding that I’d go stay with Jeongin after convincing him that I wasn’t crazy anymore; of course, that daydream was from early on and isn’t something I wanted anymore. I don’t want to live with the soulless husk of my little brother.

Changbin presses a gentle, bloody kiss to my lips and grabs my hand, leading me through the open doors of the asylum. He’s really not anything like I expected a demon to be.

I wonder what Jeongin will think.

**Author's Note:**

> i'm on twt @sunwooseok_


End file.
